2000: WOMAN LIVED IN FEAR AS MAN WHO TERRORISED HER IS JAILED FOR 30 MONTHS
A POSSESSIVE man who terrorised a woman with brutal beatings and death threats has been jailed for 30 months.From January 1992 to 1998, Raymond Gray, aged 28, of Newlin Close, Runcorn, subjected a Warrington woman to a series of assaults and threats which left her fearing for her life.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, first met Gray when she was 15 years old.
Michael Chambers, prosecuting, said the violence began in 1992 when Gray hit the complainant in the face when she was five months' pregnant.
The court heard that two days before she gave birth, he reversed a car door into her stomach.
Mr Chambers said that, in 1994, Gray kicked her in the throat and when she could not breathe, refused to take her to hospital.
The woman subsequently began suffering from depression and panic attacks.
On another occasion, the court was told she was decorating when Gray returned and, finding that his dinner was not ready, hit her across the head several times with a step ladder.
In November 1994, the woman was hospitalised for two weeks after Gray kicked her in the stomach, Mr Chambers said.
The woman later told police that, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Gray had warned her: "You tell anyone and I'll kill you." The court heard that on another occasion Gray left a photo of the woman in her home with a knife through the middle of it.
The complainant was so terrified of Gray that she moved into a women's refuge and changed her name by deed poll - but he continued to hound her.
At the end of 1997, Gray sent a message on her pager which read: "I am the firestarter.
How's your mum, how's your dad?" In a police statement, the woman said she stayed with Gray because she believed he would kill her if she left.
Richard Gray, defending, said there was no independent evidence of injury and that Gray had no previous convictions for violence.
Gray pleaded guilty to two counts of actual bodily harm from January 1992 to December 1995.
He also admitted two counts of threatening to kill and causing fear of violence.
Sentencing Gray, Judge David Hale told him: "These threats, particularly the one in relation to the photo, are of a particularly worrying type.
You seem to be a very possessive young man who allowed your feelings to overcome your normal good sense.
I suspect you are an unfeeling young man.
You have no concern really for your children or for those who you are with." Judge Hale also served a restraining order on Gray which would make it an offence for him to contact the complainant in any form.
Gray - who could be seen smirking as he was led away - had already spent eight months in custody and was likely to be released by the end of this year.
